Web Search Engines & Directories, Page 3

Related Terms

Microsoft's Bing, Google, Yahoo, Ask.com, Business.com ... if you're looking for information on the Web, there are a number of search engines from to choose. They are all different, yet they have inherent similarities.

Business.com

Business.com touts itself as both a business search engine and pay-per-click advertising network. The search directory caters to unique monthly visitors and its pay-per-click advertising network serving more than 40 million unique business users. The search is organized around a directory of more than 65,000 business product and service categories linked to over three million keywords. when users search Business.com the keywords are automatically match them to the most appropriate directory category and search results are a broad search across those categories. The search aims to help business professionals in three main ways:

Learn with Business How-To Guides, which are integrated into many Business.com categories, find information with links to related categories on each directory page, and also to buy through its list of relevant vendors across thousands of business products and services. In 2006, Business.com launched Work.com, a business-to-business community publishing platform where experts share advice on common business topics.

Business.com Search Tips:

Business.com searches its Directory, however for searches outside the Business Internet, Business.com will search the entire Web for the most relevant results.

By default, Business.com only returns results that include all of your search terms.

There is no need to search for plurals (searching for "monitor" also returns results for "monitors")

Stemming is automatically supported (searching for "manufacturing" will return results for any form of the word "manufacture").

Dogpile

Dogpile Web search is a single search engines that produces results compiled from what they call "all the best search engines." Dogpile is the company's flagship metasearch engine — that is, one search engine that searches multiple search engines. Dogpile offers users the most relevant search results from twelve different search engines including Google, Yahoo, About, Miva, LookSmart, Microsoft Live Search and Ask.com. Dogpile is owned by InfoSpace who also owns MetaCrawler, WebCrawler, Zoo.com and WebFetch. Infospace, Switchboard and Find It are the company's local search brands.

Dogpile Tips:

Dogpile recognizes spaces, so be sure to search with the correct spaces included.

Search using the most literal word order.

Dogpile offers users the ability to refine search results. If you search using the broad term of insurance, its "Are You Looking For" technology suggests various terms such as home or auto.

Dogpile's search categories, which should be used when looking for a specific type of content. These categories include things like audio, images, and news. Just check the category radio button above the search box to use them.

Cuil

Cuil (pronounced 'cool') first launched in July 2008. The search engine has an interesting history—it was developed by former Google employees Anna Patterson and Russell Power. Another unique aspect of Cuil is that, according to the site's privacy policy, it does not keep logs of search activity. The search engine's main page says that Cuil has 124,426,951,803 Web pages indexed as of July 18, 2009.

Cuil offers a drilldown search. On some searches you may see a panel that says "Explore By Category" and includes a list of subjects related to your search. If you roll-over a category, it will open and show refinements related to your search. By looking at these suggestions, you may discover search data and other areas of interest. Cuil is available in seven languages, including English, French, Spanish, Italian, German, Portuguese and Turkish.

Based in Nova Scotia, Vangie Beal is has been writing about technology for more than a decade. She is a frequent contributor to EcommerceGuide and managing editor at Webopedia. You can tweet her online @AuroraGG.